Tokyo Edo Craft Circuit: Cut-Glass at the Bench, Woodblock Printing in Asakusa & Indigo Dyeing by Hand — 3 Days

A mirror-clad Kazuyo Sejima building in the district where Katsushika Hokusai was born and worked. The permanent gallery is compact but dense — high-resolution reproductions of The Great Wave and the Fuji series, plus a life-size diorama of the artist at 83, brush in hand, in his cluttered studio. An hour here recalibrates how you'll read every craft that follows.

Permanent exhibition ~¥400 (approx., 2026); special exhibits priced separately. 09:30–17:30, last entry 17:00; closed Mondays. A 9-minute walk from Ryogoku Station.

The 634-metre broadcasting tower and its base complex, Solamachi, where 300-odd shops and restaurants give you lunch and a craft-shopping detour without leaving the air-conditioning. Even skipping the observation decks, the Edo-craft concession floor and the aquarium-side food court make an easy midday anchor between workshops.

Solamachi shops generally 10:00–21:00. Observation decks are timed-ticket extra (~¥2,100–3,100, approx., 2026) — optional here; the craft floor and food court need no ticket.

A working cut-glass studio where, after a demonstration, you sit at a spinning diamond wheel and grind your own pattern into a coloured tumbler — the artisan steadying your hands as the first facets bite. Edo kiriko, a craft codified here in the 1830s, looks effortless until the wheel is screaming under your fingers; you leave with the glass you cut.

Workshop ~¥4,000–4,500 (approx., 2026), about 1.5 hours; reserve ahead — the studio seats only a few. Shop hours vary; typically closed Sundays and Mondays. A short walk from Tokyo Skytree Station.

Canadian printmaker David Bull's Asakusa workshop, where you pull your own ukiyo-e print: ink the carved cherrywood block, lay the washi, and burnish the back with a coiled-bamboo baren until the image transfers. Each colour is a separate block and a separate pass — by the third you understand why a single Hokusai print took a guild of hands.

'Print party' ~¥2,000–3,000 (approx., 2026), about an hour; book online ahead as popular slots fill. Two minutes from Senso-ji, on the second floor — watch for the small sign.

Tokyo's kitchenware wholesale district — 800 metres of shops selling everything a restaurant needs, from cast-iron tetsubin and lacquered bento boxes to the uncanny plastic food models in the windows. It is a craft street disguised as a supply run; the knife and ceramics shops alone justify the detour, and lunch options line the cross-streets.

Most shops 10:00–17:00; many closed Sundays. Free to browse. The street runs between Tawaramachi and Iriya stations; the giant chef's-head sign marks the south end.

A knife and ironware house founded on Kappabashi in 1908, restored into a spare gallery-like shop where each blade is laid out by purpose and steel. Staff explain the difference between a yanagiba and a deba, sharpen on request, and engrave your name into the spine in free hand — the closest thing to a bespoke souvenir the street offers.

Knives from ~¥10,000 (approx., 2026); free engraving with purchase. 11:00–17:30 year-round (closes 16:30 on the last day of the month). Paid sharpening service for blades bought here.

An indigo-dyeing studio near Senso-ji where you tie, fold or clamp a cloth, then lower it into a vat of living, fermenting indigo and watch it surface green before oxidising to the deep aizome blue. The mathematics of the resist — every fold a future white line — is the craft; the smell of the fermentation vat is the part no photo carries.

Handkerchief ¥1,920 / T-shirt ¥3,600 / katazome stencil ¥2,980 (approx., 2026). 10:00–19:00 daily; reserve by email ahead (English fine). A few minutes east of Senso-ji.

A 170-metre shopping street that drops down 'Evening-Glow Stairs' into a pocket of pre-war Tokyo — croquette butchers, a senbei griddle, cats dozing on awnings, and shopkeepers who still greet regulars by name. Come for breakfast snacks eaten on the move; the street is the antidote to the high-rise city you've spent two days inside.

Free; shop hours vary, liveliest late morning. A 5-minute walk from Nippori Station's west exit, down the famous staircase.

A 200-year-old public bathhouse in Yanaka converted into one of Tokyo's most respected contemporary galleries — the tiled entrance and lofty wooden ceiling kept, the interior whitewashed for art. Shows rotate through major Japanese and international names; the building itself, a piece of preserved Edo infrastructure, is half the visit.

Free admission; 12:00–18:00, closed Sundays, Mondays, holidays and between exhibitions — confirm the schedule before visiting. A short walk from Nezu or Nippori stations.

A Nihonbashi paper house trading since 1653, with a shop of hundreds of handmade washi sheets, a small paper museum upstairs, and a studio where you can couch your own sheet — dipping the bamboo screen into pulp and rocking it until the fibres lock. The deckle-edged sheet you make is dried and yours to carry home.

Papermaking ~¥800 per A4 sheet; private sessions from ~¥5,000 (approx., 2026). Mon–Sat 10:00–18:00; scheduled workshop dates only — book at least 3 days ahead. Near Shin-Nihombashi/Mitsukoshimae.